COUP IN DALLAS

[James DiEugenio]

3 hours ago, Chuck Schwartz said:

Yes, Jim, I couldn't say it better myself.  Now, can we get back to discussing the JFKA?

Fine Chuck.

And, for the record, I do not consider myself an ultra liberal.

[Ron Bulman]

3 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

I think one of the reasons that the conspiracy view has not gained wider acceptance in academic circles and among the wealthy is that so many conspiracy theorists have insisted on injecting large doses of their ultra-liberal political views into their books and documentaries. It turns off a lot of people when you make it appear that if you believe there was a JFK assassination conspiracy you must also accept a wide range of ultra-liberal political positions, most of which have nothing to do with the assassination, and some of which JFK himself did not accept. 

When you do this, you also give people the false impression that JFK was an ultra-liberal, when in fact JFK was conservative or moderate on a number of issues, including taxes, the budget, law and order, monetary policy, immigration, trade, and the evils of communism.

 

 

It's not an ultra liberal thing.  Pursuit of the Truth in academia at the PhD, Masters, Research level in History or Political Science about the JFKA or in the Main Stream Media is career suicide.  Gotta toe the mark and walk the line to climb the ladder.

Political Truth: The Media and the Assassination of President Kennedy: Joseph McBride: 9781939795618: Amazon.com: Books

Edited August 15, 2022 by Ron Bulman

[Michael Griffith]

I think it is unwise and counterproductive for those of us who acknowledge an assassination conspiracy in our writings to go beyond the following reasons that people should care about JFK's death:

1. We cannot have powerful elements of the government conspiring to assassinate a president because they don't like his policies. This sets a dangerous precedent and calls into question the viability of our form of government.

2. We cannot have a powerful conspiracy that assassinates a president covered up by our news media, especially when the cover-up occurs because the same elements that killed the president exert control over so much of the news media. 

3. We cannot allow a powerful conspiracy that kills a president to murder dozens of witnesses in order to prevent those witnesses from exposing the conspiracy. 

4. We cannot allow federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies to destroy evidence, alter evidence, suppress evidence, and pressure witnesses to change their story in an investigation of the death of a president (or under any circumstances, for that matter).

When we move well beyond these reasons and inject large doses of liberal positions on other issues into our JFK assassination writings, especially if we include harsh and sweeping attacks on conservatives, as Coup in Dallas does, we alienate many readers and give the impression that only liberals should care about JFK's death. 

 

[Ron Ege]

Michael - well said.  Due to what psychologists call frame of reference, which encompasses each individual's lifetime formation of their complete being, it can be extremely difficult to be always 100 percent objective in thought about any controversial subject - completely, consciously subtracting out personal bias, prejudice, ideology, etc.  You seem to have a fairly good handle on it, IMHO.  Be one liberal, conservative, libertarian, etc., you're right.  I would like to believe that everyone here wants to live where no tyranny, in way, shape, or form exists - regardless of its genesis on the political spectrum.  Alienating anyone, is far from constructive in our collective effort to determine the truth. 

[Paul Brancato]

3 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

I think it is unwise and counterproductive for those of us who acknowledge an assassination conspiracy in our writings to go beyond the following reasons that people should care about JFK's death:

1. We cannot have powerful elements of the government conspiring to assassinate a president because they don't like his policies. This sets a dangerous precedent and calls into question the viability of our form of government.

2. We cannot have a powerful conspiracy that assassinates a president covered up by our news media, especially when the cover-up occurs because the same elements that killed the president exert control over so much of the news media. 

3. We cannot allow a powerful conspiracy that kills a president to murder dozens of witnesses in order to prevent those witnesses from exposing the conspiracy. 

4. We cannot allow federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies to destroy evidence, alter evidence, suppress evidence, and pressure witnesses to change their story in an investigation of the death of a president (or under any circumstances, for that matter).

When we move well beyond these reasons and inject large doses of liberal positions on other issues into our JFK assassination writings, especially if we include harsh and sweeping attacks on conservatives, as Coup in Dallas does, we alienate many readers and give the impression that only liberals should care about JFK's death. 

 

Well said, nothing to disagree with. The problem I see is that my lifelong study of the political assassinations of the 1960’s leads one to conclude that it was rightwing adversaries that killed them, and conspired against them. I would be willing to let go of the left/right paradigm if we could agree on another way of defining this. The best books on these Assassinations have been written by ‘liberal’ thinkers. The investigators are mostly by definition humanists. The enemies at the time, and still, were and are invariably white, illiberal, corporate elitist national security types. Do you disagree? The ‘left’ media was and clearly still is specifically targeted by the power structures and their henchmen. We found out how deep that went during the post-Watergate Congressional investigations of the 1970’s. It’s ongoing. The NYT and WAPO are still reliable allies of the National Security State. They failed miserably during that time because they are not what they seem, or what they are purported to be. Radical thinkers and historians are marginalized. 
Yes, we cannot allow all this, but we have, because their power is pervasive. 
Think back on FBI history. Who did Hoover target? The John Birch Society? No - the Communists, the Blacks, the Union organizers. I have a large ‘chip’ on my shoulder about this, and so I have no trouble with Hank Albarelli and his co-writers pointing the fingers of blame where they did. If you find their ‘liberal’ or leftist stance problematic, it speaks to your beliefs. 
Do you have an issue with Albarelli pointing out the fascist links between Dallas and Spain for instance? Skorzeny occupies a major place in this book. His history, when one digs a little, shows the collusion between anti-Democratic forces and persons here and their counterparts in Europe. Is it unfair to point out, as Oliver Stone continues to do, as David Talbot and many others do, that Alan Dulles and his ilk sided with the Third Reich, and that after the war ended facilitated the escape to the West of thousands of them in the name of antiCommunism? JFK envisioned a less warlike world. Apparently that was going against the grain of those that ran the American Empire. Simply put, that’s why I care about his life and death. 
 

 

Edited August 17, 2022 by Paul Brancato

[Ron Bulman]

33 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

Well said, nothing to disagree with. The problem I see is that my lifelong study of the political assassinations of the 1960’s leads one to conclude that it was rightwing adversaries that killed them, and conspired against them. I would be willing to let go of the left/right paradigm if we could agree on another way of defining this. The best books on these Assassinations have been written by ‘liberal’ thinkers. The investigators are mostly by definition humanists. The enemies at the time, and still, were and are invariably white, illiberal, corporate elitist national security types. Do you disagree? The ‘left’ media was and clearly still is specifically targeted by the power structures and their henchmen. We found out how deep that went during the post-Watergate Congressional investigations of the 1970’s. It’s ongoing. The NYT and WAPO are still reliable allies of the National Security State. They failed miserably during that time because they are not what they seem, or what they are purported to be. Radical thinkers and historians are marginalized. 
Yes, we cannot allow all this, but we have, because their power is pervasive. 
Think back on FBI history. Who did Hoover target? The John Birch Society? No - the Communists, the Blacks, the Union organizers. I have a large ‘chip’ on my shoulder about this, and so I have no trouble with Hank Albarelli and his co-writers pointing the fingers of blame where they did. If you find their ‘liberal’ or leftist stance problematic, it speaks to your beliefs. 
Do you have an issue with Albarelli pointing out the fascist links between Dallas and Spain for instance? Skorzeny occupies a major place in this book. His history, when one digs a little, shows the collusion between anti-Democratic forces and persons here and their counterparts in Europe. Is it unfair to point out, as Oliver Stone continues to do, as David Talbot and many others do, that Alan Dulles and his ilk sided with the Third Reich, and that after the war ended facilitated the escape to the West of thousands of them in the name of antiCommunism? JFK envisioned a less warlike world. Apparently that was going against the grain of those that ran the American Empire. Simply put, that’s why I care about his life and death. 
 

 

Great post Paul.  What is the difference between the National Security State, the Deep State and the Military Industrial Complex?

[Allen Lowe]

On 8/14/2022 at 6:18 AM, Michael Griffith said:

Coup in Dallas is an unfortunate example of the attitude that so many JFK conspiracy theorists exhibit. They act like you cannot really regret JFK's death, cannot sincerely recognize the good things he did as president, and cannot genuinely believe he was killed by a conspiracy unless you also believe that the Vietnam War was wrong, that Ronald Reagan was a bad president, that Trump was a racist and a fascist, that opposing illegal immigration is racist and xenophobic, that Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning are heroes, that the PATRIOT Act was tyrannical, that using drones to kill terrorists is wrong, etc., etc.

This counter-productive attitude is found in far too many pro-conspiracy books and documentaries, such as Coup in Dallas and Oliver Stone's recent four-hour documentary JFK: Destiny Betrayed. (Thankfully, most of the liberal preaching is omitted in the two-hour version of the documentary.) 

I wonder how many conspiracy theorists know that Jim Marrs was a huge Trump supporter. Marrs supported Trump because he recognized that Trump was very anti-Deep State. If you don't believe this, go watch the presentation that Marrs gave at the 2016 JFK conference in Dallas, which was held shortly after the 2016 election--it's on YouTube. 

 

 

 

 

It’s about time someone said how good the Vietnam war was. I mean we only killed millions of Vietnamese for a war that we knew was useless, so what do they matter? 

[Michael Griffith]

I should mention that in spite of my disappointment with the heavy dose of ultra-liberal politics in Coup in Dallas, I am carrying it on the front page of my JFK site as one of my 12 recommended books/videos. I hope the book reaches many readers. I hope the conservatives who read it can overlook the ultra-liberal preaching.

It's just never a good idea to accuse 1/3 to 1/2 of your potential reading audience of being racists, fascists, xenophobes, homophobes, poopoo sympathizers (or outright Nazis), bigots, Brown Shirts, etc.

[James DiEugenio]

In my opinion, and as our film shows, I think it is counterproductive to not talk about Indochina, and other places like Congo, Indonesia etc.

These things all happened and are all provable. 

And in my view, they were ignored for too long.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

 

Can somebody tell me what some of the ultra-liberal stuff is in the four-hour version of the documentary that Michael is talking about. I don't recall it having a political bias, but maybe that's because I'm pretty liberal myself.

 

[Michael Griffith]

When I began to study the JFK case, I was not a fan of JFK as a person because of his serial adultery, but I had a much more favorable opinion of him as a president because I knew he had supported tax cuts, increased defense spending, worked toward a balanced budget, etc. Thus, I was surprised to find that one pro-conspiracy book after another described JFK as a liberal and included varying doses of liberal politics (especially on the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and disarmament). After a while, I learned to ignore the liberal preaching, but the vitriolic, sweeping attacks on conservatives contained in Coup in Dallas go well beyond the liberal preaching I've seen in other pro-conspiracy books.

I recommend that JFK fans read Ira Stoll's highly acclaimed book JFK, Conservative (Mariner Books, 2013).  Stoll documents that JFK was not the liberal that most Democrats now paint him to be.

If JFK were alive today, he would be aghast at how far left the Democratic Party has lurched. If he would be a Democrat at all, he would be, at the very least, a Joe Manchin Democrat. It is possible he would be a centrist Republican. 

Edited August 20, 2022 by Michael Griffith

[James DiEugenio]

Mike, 

Whew.  Stoll worked for Newsmax and Reason.  And the New York Sun.

The idea that Kennedy was a conservative is kind of ridiculous. As ridiculous as saying he would be a Manchin Democrat.

The 2 great battlegrounds between conservatives and liberals at that time were: 

1. Civil Rights

2. Indochina

No modern president did more for civil rights than Kennedy did.  JFK did more on that issue in 2 years and 10 months than FDR, Truman and Eisenhower did in almost three decades. For example, LBJ voted against every civil rights bill sent to the Hill for 20 years, 1937-57.  And Kennedy did not want to vote for the LBJ/Ike bill in 1957 because he thought it was too weak. What conservatives felt that way?  Ike?  Nixon? Bill Buckley? Kilpatrick?

As myself, Newman, Gordon Goldstein and Jim Blight and others have proven, JFK was not going into Vietnam, and was withdrawing at the time of his death.  That policy was quickly reversed by LBJ and was backed by the Pentagon.  That escalation had almost universal support in Washington for about three years after JFK's death.  And Nixon//Ford backed it for 7 more years even when both knew the war was not winnable.  When it all collapsed, Mr. Conservative Ronald Reagan tried to characterize it as a "noble cause".  H W Bush tried to say, we have to beat the "Vietnam Syndrome"

Kennedy himself made his speech explaining why he was a liberal in 1960 in New York.  

The rightwing tried to blur this on the grounds of Kennedy's tax cuts.  But IIRC, Jacob Weisberg showed in The New Republic, that Kennedy's tax cut was not like the Supply Side one.  It was more middle class oriented and more demand oriented. Reagan  ended up cutting the top rate to below 30 per cent. Way less than half of what it was at the time of JFK's death.

In addition to this, Kennedy was the first president to campaign for Universal Health Care, and he tried to pass a Medicare bill and was bringing it back at the time of his murder. Can you show me where Reagan--or Trump, for that matter--was advocating for those two programs back in 1963?

With all due respect Mike, you can tell Stoll he is full of BS. As is Chomsky. Funny how extremes meet on the subject of JFK. Which tells you something.

 

Edited August 20, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[Sandy Larsen]

4 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

When I began to study the JFK case, I was not a fan of JFK as a person because of his serial adultery, but I had a much more favorable opinion of him as a president because I knew he had supported tax cuts, increased defense spending, worked toward a balanced budget, etc.

 

JFK supported tax cuts because they were insanely high -- 90% marginal rate for high-income individuals. That's way too high even for liberals.

 

[Norman T. Field]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

Kennedy was the first president to campaign for Universal Health Care,

I believe that Harry Truman was first on this issue. 

[Michael Davidson]

4 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

Thus, I was surprised to find that one pro-conspiracy book after another described JFK as a liberal and included varying doses of liberal politics (especially on the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and disarmament).

You'd rather America was still in Vietnam ? Or that they had won instead of getting beaten ? You'd rather America pissed away $ trillions on wars and invasions instead of having a proper publically funded healthcare system ? 

As a Brit i have to tell you that America is laughed at for how backward it is